Friday, April 29, 2011
Marriage Matters
”We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'." - Susan Sarandon in Shall We Dance
Friday, April 22, 2011
Friday Confessional w/ Mamarazzi
I confess: Yesterday I carefully coupon matched and saved $85+ (the receipt said I saved 32% off my total purchase) on my grocery bill, which is a big deal for me. - that is not the confession part, I'm just setting the scene here - After all that I get home and am depressed because I've watched that stupid Extreme Couponing show and it kept me from feeling satisfaction in the work that I did and the money that I saved because it wasn't "extreme" enough. :-P
I confess: I get depressed whenever I have to fill out paperwork regarding my children's developmental delays, go to big doctor's appointments, etc. I think a part of me is still in denial - or wants to be in denial that they are and may always be special needs, handicapped, disabled, or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get over it.
I confess: I am one of those people that sits on my couch with a bowl of ice cream while I watch Biggest Loser. I know, I should be eating carrots or doing crunches through the whole show or something. But no. Not me. My chubby butt is too tired after a long day!
I confess: My husband is very gifted musically. I on the other hand, am terrible. Ok, maybe not terrible... but definitely not good. I wish that we were a little more balanced in this area. He loves me and it doesn't bother him any... but I think it'd be nice if we had a talent that we could share.
I confess: I'm bad at these confession things. I never know if I should be serious, or funny... and I end up creating posts and deleting them because I think their dumb or too personal. But what the hey.
I guess that is all for now. Hope you all have a fantabulous Friday!!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Spring Break Recap!
Well... its been almost two weeks since we got back from our road trip. I think we're almost back to "normal". I wanted to do a really detailed account of our trip but here I am ending up doing a brief summary instead. Such is life.
So, the trip included Isaac, myself, Nate (5yr), Joe (4yr), Christine (almost 1yr), my sister Shan & her son Wy (9mos) and our friend Jess. On Thurs we finished packing and loaded the van. (We were so blessed to borrow one of my parents' 15 passenger vans for the trip.) When Isaac and Jess got back from work around 7pm we loaded up the kids and headed out. Because we had four drivers we chose to rotate every few hours and basically drive through to ABQ without overnighting anywhere. We were able to designate the back bench as the "sleeping bench" which helped a lot with the driving situation. I still was anticipating the drive to be a day and a half to two days since we were traveling with four kids under 6yr old (two of which are nursing). Along the road we stopped at a Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma, and on the return we saw the Worlds' Largest Rocking Chair. We made much better time both coming and going than we expected.
One of the things that we enjoyed most about the trip was the food. Big shocker. ;-) We had a wide variety of cuisines while on our trip. We tried both Indian and Greek food on top of the various contemporary and New Mexican dishes as well. In particular we visited two diners that were featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We ate at both The Standard Diner in ABQ and Zia Diner in Santa Fe. We highly recommend the Bourbon Butter burger at The Standard and the Blue Corn Enchiladas at Zia Diner. Amazing food people!!
We were able to take in some of the local attractions around Albuquerque while we were in town. We visited Explora, the National Petroplyph Monument, the flea market, Old Town, the ABQ BioPark Aquarium & Gardens, and others. We took the Rail Runner train to Santa Fe one evening and walked around town for awhile before having dinner at Zia Diner there. And of course we were excited to spend some time with my family that lives in the ABQ area. We do not get to see them often enough!
The cons: Nate and Joe both threw up our first night in ABQ. Yuck. Joe might have had a small concussion from falling off of the hotel bed. We missed our original train and instead of spending the day in Santa Fe we ended up spending just a couple of hours. The day we chose to drive up the beautiful Sandia mountains ended up being the only rainy, yucky day the whole trip.
The pros: We got to visit with our family that we do not get to see often. We were surprised at how smoothly things went, all things considered. We still liked each other at the end of the trip. The kids behaved pretty well. The food was great. We took an extra adult so we were not outnumbered by the children - thank goodness! We have finally tackled a big road trip and now future trips will not seem nearly so daunting! ;-)
So, the trip included Isaac, myself, Nate (5yr), Joe (4yr), Christine (almost 1yr), my sister Shan & her son Wy (9mos) and our friend Jess. On Thurs we finished packing and loaded the van. (We were so blessed to borrow one of my parents' 15 passenger vans for the trip.) When Isaac and Jess got back from work around 7pm we loaded up the kids and headed out. Because we had four drivers we chose to rotate every few hours and basically drive through to ABQ without overnighting anywhere. We were able to designate the back bench as the "sleeping bench" which helped a lot with the driving situation. I still was anticipating the drive to be a day and a half to two days since we were traveling with four kids under 6yr old (two of which are nursing). Along the road we stopped at a Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma, and on the return we saw the Worlds' Largest Rocking Chair. We made much better time both coming and going than we expected.
One of the things that we enjoyed most about the trip was the food. Big shocker. ;-) We had a wide variety of cuisines while on our trip. We tried both Indian and Greek food on top of the various contemporary and New Mexican dishes as well. In particular we visited two diners that were featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We ate at both The Standard Diner in ABQ and Zia Diner in Santa Fe. We highly recommend the Bourbon Butter burger at The Standard and the Blue Corn Enchiladas at Zia Diner. Amazing food people!!
We were able to take in some of the local attractions around Albuquerque while we were in town. We visited Explora, the National Petroplyph Monument, the flea market, Old Town, the ABQ BioPark Aquarium & Gardens, and others. We took the Rail Runner train to Santa Fe one evening and walked around town for awhile before having dinner at Zia Diner there. And of course we were excited to spend some time with my family that lives in the ABQ area. We do not get to see them often enough!
The cons: Nate and Joe both threw up our first night in ABQ. Yuck. Joe might have had a small concussion from falling off of the hotel bed. We missed our original train and instead of spending the day in Santa Fe we ended up spending just a couple of hours. The day we chose to drive up the beautiful Sandia mountains ended up being the only rainy, yucky day the whole trip.
The pros: We got to visit with our family that we do not get to see often. We were surprised at how smoothly things went, all things considered. We still liked each other at the end of the trip. The kids behaved pretty well. The food was great. We took an extra adult so we were not outnumbered by the children - thank goodness! We have finally tackled a big road trip and now future trips will not seem nearly so daunting! ;-)
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